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"Is playing a social game where you interact with other people any different than going out to a club or bar? Joining a bowling league? A cycling group? A healt
by hobbes 16y ago
"Is playing a social game where you interact with other people any different than going out to a club or bar? Joining a bowling league? A cycling group? A health clubwhere you go to regular group exercise classes?"
The article makes the difference abundantly clear. This is what the writer learned by meeting the guild leader in real life:
"She was perfectly nice, and an excellent cook. But it was hard not to notice certain things - no matter how bad I felt for noticing them. It was hard not to notice she lived in a crappy apartment in a crappy neighborhood. It was hard not to notice she was fat. It was hard not to notice that despite her dreams of going back to school and becoming a paramedic, she just worked part-time at a local pizza joint."
It is that level of personal, real, gritty, disturbing, eye-opening raw detail that is often hidden behind an avatar.
- scotty79 16y agoSo it is preferable to participate in real life instead of game because it is uglier?
- gwern 16y agoEr... no. That's not it at all. I'm baffled how you could have read that into the quote. The point is that World of Warcraft was taking all the time & energy that could have went into improving her life, and that she besides not on any sort of growth trajectory, may well have been getting worse - that she wasn't investing even the minimum necessary to keep her life (such as it was) viable.
- hobbes 16y agoErr, no. According to my worldview, it is preferable because it is real.
- zumda 16y agoThis quote does raise an interesting point. Virtual settings are maybe better to get to know new people, because it doesn't matter if it is a he or she, if he is black, white, Hispanic, fat, muscular, it doesn't matter if they aren't dressed as nicely, it doesn't matter if they life in a dump or in a villa. I know some stuck up people that wouldn't consider talking to someone without a bachelors degree. Since meeting some people from WoW in real life they changed their attitude. These virtual settings allow everyone to meet people from all stages of life, people one would never meet otherwise. And this diversity makes life interesting.